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Tocqueville's Conception of the Elite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Francis G. Wilson
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Extract

When Alexis de Tocqueville, a perceptive young French aristocrat, was thrown against the turmoil of the nineteenth century, he became a student of social structure and a political philosopher. By background he was Catholic in faith and of the nobility in outlook. But he faced revolution in France and everspreading social change in European society. An unwilling child of the French Revolution, he was led to see broad meaning behind the passing events of the political hour. This ability to extrapolate into the future the present incident permitted him to see many of the social trends which have come to tragic cacophony in the wars of the twentieth century. No one today is ashamed to read the provocative pages Tocqueville wrote, and all who read him find relevance to the present world.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , July 1942 , pp. 271 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1942

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References

1 An indirect suggestion of Tocqueville's concern for the gentleman and the aristocrat is seen in his conversations with Mr. Livingston, in which the decline of the landowning class is deplored. See Pierson, George Wilson, Tocqueville and Beaumont in America (1938). pp. 117–118Google Scholar.

2 De la démocratic en Amérique, ed. by Beaumont, Gustave de (14th ed., Paris, 1864), Vol. III, pp. 139 ffGoogle Scholar.

Tocqueville stated his opinion as follows: “Pour moi, je pense qu'il n'y a pas d'époque oú il ne faille attribuer une partie des evénéments de ce monde á des faits trés généraux, et une autre á des influences trés particuliéres. Ces deux causes se rencontrent toujours; leur rapport seul diffère. Les faits généraux expliquent plus de choses dans les siècles démocratiques que dans les siècles aristocratiques, et les influences particulières moins. Dans les temps d'aristocratic, c'est Ie contraire: les influences particulières sont plus fortes, et les causes générates plus faibles, a moins qu' on ne considère comme une cause générale le fait même de 1' inégalité des conditions, qui permet à quelques individus de contrarier les tendances naturelles de tous les autres.“ Ibil., pp. 141–142.

3 Mosca, Cf. Gaetano, The Ruling Class, tr. from the Italian (1939), pp. xxii, 330,Google Scholar for Mosca's use of Taine's emphasis on the problem of the ruling class in the French Revolution.

4 De la déim., Vol. III, pp. 496 ffGoogle Scholar.

5 Ibid., Vol. III, pp. 529–530. 538.

6 L'ancien régime el la Révolution (8th ed., Paris, 1877), pp. 67 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Ibid., pp. 60 ff., 105.

8 Ibid., pp. 234–243.

9 De la dém., Vol. I, p. 145Google Scholar. On the other hand, Tocqueville distinguished between a necessary governmental centralization and administrative decentralization. Governmental centralization is necessary and it exists properly in the United States in both the national and state governments.

10 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 111.

11 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 132–133.

12 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 120.

13 Ibid., Vol. Ill, p. 20 ff. In contrast to the English, Tocqueville observed the interest of Americans in general ideas, but he attributed this to equality in society, since the truth found by an individual about himself may be applied to the rest of the society. Another result of this condition is that general ideas of the masses tend to remain fixed or permanent.

14 Ibid., Vol. III, pp. 425 ff.

15 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 142 ff. We have believed, said our author, that tyrannies are odious, but now we have discovered that there is legitimate tyranny and holy injustice, provided it occurs in the name of the people. Vol. II, p. 401. What really kept the American union together, he thought, was the similarity of sentiments and opinions; but he was not hopeful about the permanence of the union. Vol. II, pp. 360, 362, 380 ff.

16 An. Régime, pp. 161 ff.

17 Ibid., pp. 200–201.

18 Ibid., pp. 181 ff.

19 Ibid., pp. 265 ff.

20 Ibid., pp. 387 ff.

21 See The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville (1896), pp. 229–230.Google Scholar

22 An. Régime, p. 143.

23 Ibid., pp. 206 ff.

24 Ibid., pp. 215–217, 285–299. Tocqueville insisted that the old regime had taught revolution by its disrespect of rights, since it had seized property and violated testamentary charities all by arbitrary decree. They forgot that the best way to teach men to violate the rights of the living is to violate before them the rights of the dead. Ibid., pp. 280–281.

25 Recollections, p. 13.

26 Ibid., p. 15.

27 Ibid., pp. 100–101.

28 Ibid., p. 283.

29 Loc. cit.

30 Ibid., p. 287.

31 Events in France confirmed Tocqueville's fear of the bureaucratic state, for in 1854 he insisted that Austria and Germany were moving from the old feudal organization into the centralized state. “Partout on sort de la liberte du moyen-âge, non pour entrer dans la liberté moderne, mais pour retourner au despotisme antique. Car la centralisation, ce n'est pas autre chose que l'administration de l'Empire romain modemisée.“ Oeuvres Completes d'Alexis de Tocqueville (Paris, 1866), Vol. VII, pp. 322–323Google Scholar.

32 De la dém., Vol. I, Introduction.

33 Ibid., Vol. III, pp. 472–485.

34 An. Régime, pp. x–xiii.

35 De la dém., Vol. II, pp. 48–54Google Scholar

. Tocqueville cites with approval Kent's, Commentaries, Vol. I, p. 272, where executive appointment of judges is approved. Tocqueville goes on to say that the choice of good men is not one of the advantages of universal suffrage. Americans do not fear ability, but they have little taste for itGoogle Scholar.

36 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 120.

37 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 139.

38 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 166.

39 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 169 ff.

40 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 173; Vol. I, p. 172.

41 Ibid., Vol. III, p. 436; 430 ff.

42 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 37–38.

43 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 247 ff.

44 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 136–137.

45 Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 208 ff.

46 Schemann, L. (ed.), Correspondence entre Alexis de Tocqueville ei Arthur de Cobineau, 1843–1859 (Paris, 1908). pp. 22–24.Google Scholar

When Tocqueville entered the Chamber of Deputies in France in 1839 he opposed slavery in the French colonies. See De la dém., Vol. I, p. xxxixGoogle Scholar.

47 Schemann, , op. cr'f., p. 187Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., P. 191, 194.

49 Ibid. pp. 307–308. See also Salomon, Albert, “Tocqueville's Philosophy of Freedom,” The Review of Politics. I (1939), 400 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

In 1856 Gobineau wrote to Tocqueville that Hotz in Montgomery and Nott in Mobile had translated the first volume of his work. He seemed pleased with the American attention he was receiving. Tocqueville replied that the use of Gobineau's doctrine was for party purposes, to show the inferiority of the blacks, but not the decadence of the Anglo-Saxons. Schemann, , op. cit., pp. 282 ff. 291–292Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., pp. 311 ff.